


burning, like sorrow in a heavy heart

by thir13enth



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Gen, because its such an OG duo boon, ft sea storm, honestly more like a character study lmao, this is written for zagreus's first final encounter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27633784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: Hades has never let Zagreus’s burning feet out of his sight in his life — and he certainly doesn’t intend to now.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 127





	burning, like sorrow in a heavy heart

Hades hears Zagreus emerges from the Temple — the rusty creak of the grand double doors, the quiet whine of a distracted Cerberus, the soft crunch of snow under his burning feet — and he does not turn around.

“Father,” Zagreus greets, a tight choke in his voice. “I should have known.”

Hades looks at the horizon for only a moment more, then tears his eyes away from the shadow of the rising sun. He turns to face his son — finally. Head on and straight forward, with dark eyes and unforgiving frown.

Zagreus is absolutely beaten up. Hades wonders how many deaths he’s defied, how many fountains he’s desperately lapped from, how many times he’s called for aid — only to arrive here.

He confronts him as he has many times back in the House, chin up and neck craned to face him despite his short stature. This time, there’s an edge to his stance. His messy hair looks a little more tousled, specks of static occasionally snapping at the crisp air, and there’s a light smell of brine and saline about him.

His brothers have been helping him, haven’t they?

Stupid younger brothers. Interfering in personal affairs in the name of family. The Olympians were always like this. Scuttling in their petty drama in the clouds — leaving the rain and ruins for everyone underneath to pick up after.

And of course, anything the surface doesn’t absorb seeps into the Underworld, oft the most acrid and bitter of the consequences.

Irresponsible and reckless fools. They don’t know how much trouble they’ve already caused.

They don’t even know how much trouble they _will_ cause. Any more of this meddling, and every single secret that Hades has kept locked in his realm would be for naught.

Zagreus would never understand. He is too young, too brash, too selfish to see beyond the tip of his blade.

“Are you here to stop me then?” his son asks. He shrugs off the shaft of his spear from his shoulders.

Hades sees Varatha then — its unmistakable dual point smirking in the dawn light.

He scoffs under his breath, then raises his own spear — the one for which he traded its very counterpart.

“You’ll see there is no escape,” he simply replies. He tosses off his cape, letting it fade into ashes, and without another moment lost, he charges forward two steps, letting the head of his spear span a mighty radius with its momentum.

Zagreus dashes to the side, hides away behind some pillars. With his size, Zagreus has the speed advantage, but Hades has never let Zagreus’s burning feet out of his sight in his life — and he certainly doesn’t intend to now. Hades cloaks himself in darkness, following his son’s melted tracks.

Perhaps his son can sense the thunder behind his step, or perhaps he’s much more out of practice than he thought, but by the time Hades rounds the corner and thrusts his spear forth, Zagreus is long gone. In subdued rage, Hades hurls a skull out behind him, where he presumes his son would be.

Indeed, Zagreus has learned well from Nyx. He backstabs with boldness, as if guaranteed the night’s enshrouding.

Idiot. Mother Night cannot protect him on the surface.

Still, however, Zagreus attacks with unbridled strength — more than Hades has ever seen him use in practice with Achilles, more than Hades has ever seen him express with his sharp tongue. His hits are fueled by lightening, his evasion like the tide.

This is indeed his brothers’ doings.

Hades has certainly experienced the brunt of his two younger brothers before. They’ve sparred incalculable times in the past, both trivial and consequential battles alike. With the ocean’s fury and the heaven’s might, his son wields the elements like they’re his own. Each strike feels worse now that his very own spear — the one he once brandished against the Titans — is now pointed at _him._

Ironic. Perhaps Varatha was always meant to help destroy fathers.

Or perhaps this is all to prove his son is more like him than he recognizes. Like father, like son — he supposes.

…

Hades doesn’t actually give it his all. He realizes this, maybe a little too late in the fight.

Zagreus makes him trip once, and that’s when Hades decides that the next time he falls to his son would be the very last time.

His second fall comes faster than he anticipates. Hades tires quickly, and he makes the mistake of withdrawing when he sees his son surge toward him like a wave of Poseidon’s great ocean.

Zagreus immediately catches his falter, and he jabs at him. Frantic and hurried. Unhindered and haphazard. As if he’s worried this is the closest he’ll ever come to bringing Hades down.

But only a few more hits. Then Hades falls, a second time — and all becomes quiet.

Hades looks down at the ground, angry boiling blood evaporating the soft white layer of snow between his fingers into steam. He sees his son’s ember feet come to a standstill, slowly melting the ice around his toes. He can tell by his son’s wide defensive stance that he doesn’t know if he’ll rise again for a third time.

Stupid boy. He emerged victorious, and he doesn’t even know it yet.

Hades had never been prepared to defeat his son in the first place, after all. He had been standing at the entrance of the Temple, a thick warm cloak over his body so that Demeter’s everlasting winter would not touch him. He had been waiting — all the way at the very exit, secretly hoping a combination of an innocuous Soul Catcher and Zagreus’s overconfidence would bring the boy straight back to the mouth of the Styx.

Hades takes another deep breath, heaving not so subtly.

Perhaps _now_ his son gets it.

“Are you —” and Zagreus interrupts himself, his lips snapping shut.

Are you what?

Are you done? Are you finished?

Are you _okay_?

Blood and darkness. Does he dare look _up_ at his son? Has his son ever seen him on his hands and knees, bruised and wounded, helpless and defeated? Has he ever looked at his son from any other place but his throne?

“Well?” he snaps. He finally looks up at Zagreus. “What are you waiting for? Blood and darkness, _go_ then!”

He can see Zagreus suck in a quick breath, Varatha perched atop his shoulders, outlined in their blood — both his son’s mortal red and his own eternal black. Zagreus stares down at him for another second, blinking.

He wonders if maybe his son actually feels _pity_ for him.

He can’t tell, of course, because he doesn’t dare look his son in the eyes. It’s no coincidence the prince was born in his mother’s image, and it’s no surprise his left eye is the exact shade of his mother’s — something reminiscent of a lush jungle, a spring mountainside, a new leaf off the branch of a pomegranate tree.

She is half of him, and whether that is fortune or misfortune, Hades still cannot tell.

Zagreus’s lips part, as if about to say something, but for once his chattering son holds his tongue.

Then, without a word, Zagreus sprints to the gate behind him. He disappears into the ether, into a warm sunrise that Hades has never dared to cross, lest Helios catch sight of his ashen, hell-eaten complexion.

The last Hades sees of him are his footprints — marking the fresh snow in warm defiance.

There’s something about his son’s stubbornness that reminds him of his Queen, and maybe even of himself. Perhaps his son has always meant to subvert unrelenting Olympian diplomacy. After all, he came to be — despite Demeter’s overprotecting hold on her only daughter and despite the sneer of the above-surface inhabitants when seeing chthonic skin.

It’s his defiance that keeps his feet burning, Hades realizes then.

Footsteps afire, Hades can only hope Zagreus’s red flames quiet when he reaches his mother’s green garden, so that he doesn’t burn it all down.

**Author's Note:**

> not sure if i captured what i wanted to write here, but basically at the end what i mean by “he doesn’t burn it all down” is that hades hopes that whatever his son is doing doesn’t rip apart everything that hades has done to keep things lowkey and in balance. i wanted to kinda contrast zagreus’s desire to reunite his family and make amends with the risk of literally causing hell. i think i probably could have spent more time extra-emphasizing so that theme is more obviously pulled out but at the same time, i felt that would have been too extra. so here i am in the author’s end note explaining what should be a stand alone “interpret as you will” piece. big sigh.
> 
> anyway, sea storm is a godsend duo boon. bless poseidon dash.
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Grant Me (the Aspect of)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27737512) by [novashyperion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novashyperion/pseuds/novashyperion)




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